When the full history of trade unions and the Labour party gets to be written, one of its unsung heros will surely be included. Bill Sirs (January 1920-June 2015) was general secretary of Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, one of the ‘triple alliance’ which, in concert with the miners and the train workers, supplied the coal and steel which helped build and industrialise Britain, and kept homes warm for over a century. As general secretary the moderate Bill Sirs led his members on a 13-week strike in 1980, at the time the longest since the 1926 general strike.
It was, however, his traditional, moderate but strongly pro-Labour views which in 1981 saw him help set up the then unknown ‘St Ermin’s Group’, after the Social Democratic party defections, to bring the Labour party back to electability from its wayward hard-left path which he knew was losing the support of his own members.
These were difficult days for the Labour party. First the moderates had to defeat Tony Benn’s attempt to replace Denis Healey as deputy leader, and then to change the political balance on the National Executive Committee to rid it of the pro-Militant, anti-leadership majority.
The 1982 NEC elections were crucial to this, with the St Ermin’s Group having its major impact thanks to the courage of the National Union of Railwaymen’s Sid Weighell, who got found out and had to resign, and Bill Sirs, who did not. Both men broke their mandates, and voted against the Triple Alliance’s National Union of Mineworkers’ candidate, to support the moderate slate.
Bill Sirs believed the Labour party was finished unless it moved back to the centre. He worked through the trade union St Ermin’s Group to achieve this, partly by the change in the composition of the NEC, then in tackling Militant, but always supporting the leader, initially Michael Foot and subsequently Neil Kinnock. He later became part of ‘a solidarity of trade union leaders’ to join John Smith on public platforms to argue the cause and not just work behind the scenes for it.
In the 1980s, trade union general secretaries – with some 12 million members behind them – were often household names. This smartly dressed representative of the steel workers gave them pride and confidence, as well as a strong voice in the Trades Union Congress, the party and parliament.
He saw the wellbeing of steelworkers being only partly in the hands of employers, but also in the hands of the state – with its role in education, the health service, education and pensions – and he wanted their voice to be strong in Labour, and Labour to be strong in the country, preferably in No 10.
He did his bit, and more, to achieve exactly that aim.
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Dianne Hayter is a former chair of the National Executive Committee
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A good obituary apart from the irritating comment about trade union leaders of the 1980s returning Labour to “the centre”. They helped to return Labour to its correct position on the moderate left. Labour should not be a centre party!
Bill Sirs was also ahead of his time in campaigning against smoking at union conferences – despite the opposition of the Tobacco Workers Union. He was the fittest member of the TUC General Council by far and a regular jogger long before recreational running became popular. Perhaps that is why he lived to be 95.